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Heart disease, or cardiovascular disease, refers to a condition of the heart and blood vessels. Heart disease is often diagnoses in adulthood, though its roots can begin in childhood. In order to lower your child’s risk of developing heart disease, it is important to give your child healthy foods, and make sure that he or she is living as healthy a lifestyle as possible.

Reduce your child’s intake of salt. If bad eating habits are started at a young age, there is a good chance they will carry over into adult life. Try to keep your child’s intake of salt to a minimum, as salt has been linked to high blood pressure, stroke, and heart disease.

0 to 12 month old should get a maximum of 1 gram of salt each day.[1]XResearch sourceNeill, C. A., Clark, E. B., Clark, C., &amp; Ebrary, Inc. (2001). The Heart of a child: What families need to know about heart disorders in children. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

1 to 3 year olds should get two grams of salt each day.y.[2]XResearch sourceNeill, C. A., Clark, E. B., Clark, C., &amp; Ebrary, Inc. (2001). The Heart of a child: What families need to know about heart disorders in children. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Try to avoid feeding your child junk food. Teach your child that junk food is bad at an early age. Junk foods like chips, candy, and fried foods are all empty calories that lack almost any nutritional value. They are also generally high in salts, sugars, and bad fats.

Reduce the amount of bad fats your child consumes. Bad fats are saturated fats and trans fats. These kinds of fats can raise your child’s lipo protein, or bad cholesterol, levels. This could result in heart complications later on in life.

Bad fats can be found in foods like processes cakes and cookies, deep fried foods, candy, and whole fat dairy products.

Feed your child foods that are rich in Omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 promotes a healthy heart, and has been shown to reduce the chance of heart attacks and blood clots[6]XTrustworthy SourceMayo ClinicEducational website from one of the world's leading hospitalsGo to source. Foods that contain omega-3 fatty acids include:

Reduce the amount of sugar and fat your child gets in order to prevent obesity. Obesity can either be hereditary, or linked to eating a lot of bad foods. Being obese can increase your child’s chances of heart disease and stroke later on in light. Foods that contain a lot of sugar and fat should be avoided in order to maintain your child’s healthy weight.

Eat meals as a family. Eating meals as a family can help you to keep track of what foods your child is eating. Cutting out bad foods needs to be a family-wide change, as children often learn by example; if your child sees you snacking on a candy bar, she will be much more likely to snack on such foods herself.

Eating together can help you to monitor how much your child is eating, as well as what sort of foods she is eating.

Help your child to maintain a healthy weight. While maintaining your child’s diet is a large part of being able to manage your child’s weight, exercising and being physically fit also play a part. To keep your child at a healthy weight, you can check her body mass index (BMI). To do this:

BMI is measured by the weight (mass) of your child in kilograms divided by the height in mass squared.

The ideal BMI is 18.5 to 25, so a BMI of 25 percent or more means that your child is overweight.[8]XResearch sourceEsselstyn, C. B. (2007). Prevent and reverse heart disease: The revolutionary, scientifically proven, nutrition-based cure. New York: Avery.

Try to limit the amount of time your child spends sitting in front of the computer or TV. One way to help keep your child healthy is to encourage physical activity, rather than sitting around in front of the computer or TV.

Sign your child up for a sports team, or plan fun physical activities for the whole family, like hiking or biking.

Help your child to exercise regularly. Active children tend to grow up and become active adults. Regular exercise is important because it helps to control your child’s weight; it can also help to boost your child’s self-esteem and confidence. Exercising could include playing sports like soccer or test, running, biking, hiking, swimming, snowboarding, or rock climbing; the possibilities are endless.

If your child has a medical condition that may keep her from exercising as often as she should, work with her doctor to come up with an exercise regimen that takes your child’s condition into account.

Keep your teen from smoking, and do not smoke around your children. Smoking can increase your heart rate and tighten the major arteries in your body, making your heart work harder. This could lead to heart disease in the future.[9]XResearch sourceEsselstyn, C. B. (2007). Prevent and reverse heart disease: The revolutionary, scientifically proven, nutrition-based cure. New York: Avery.

If you smoke, make sure to do so far away from your child. You should also seriously consider quitting for your own health.

If you think your child may be smoking, talk to her about the dangers of smoking.

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wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, volunteer authors worked to edit and improve it over time. Together, they cited 9 references. This article has been viewed 4,654 times.